Breaking Things
by sirrryesssirrr
Summary: Santana has an inherently destructive nature. AU Brittany/Santana. Femslash.


Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

Santana breaks things.

She has an inherently destructive nature.

Her default setting is to break and destroy, to decimate everything in her path. The better she's at it, the more she feels in control of herself. A lot of the time, she does it with conviction; means every move. It's when she's with Brittany that her defenses falter. It's around Brittany that she wants to be nicer; to keep herself from destroying things. It's damn near impossible, but she tries anyway, just for her.

But she gives in to temptation.

So much so that at the eve of Santana's departure to college, she breaks things off with Brittany. Reasons that it's going to be different anyway, what they had was something special but it wasn't going to last. A preemptive strike, if you will. Avoid getting hurt by taking the first punch. She doesn't have a real reason for breaking things off with Brittany because she knows that if she can help it, she'll go to the ends of the Earth for her. She just doesn't want to know that outside of Lima, they can't make it.

They're in Santana's room, under the covers, lying on their sides facing each other. Santana takes her heavy-duty flashlight from her bedside drawer and turns it on so they can see each other. She figures not to be a coward and let Brittany see her face when she goes on and breaks Brittany's heart.

Santana doesn't have any expectations. She wants for Brittany to understand, to shed some tears, maybe. There's no visible change that she can see, but she knows she just ruined the other girl.

She reassures Brittany that they can still be friends, probably the worst thing she can say at the time. Why would you want to be friends with someone that would hurt you like that? She reassures that breaking things off is not a reason for Santana to get with all the girls and boys in college. It doesn't help anything and she gives up, turns the flashlight off.

Brittany's hand fumbles around for the flashlight. She turns it on just as she shoves the sheet off of her. It dawns on Santana fairly quickly that this is the first time that Brittany ever had to find her way around her room. She can see the glow of the light through the sheet and can hear Brittany put her pants on.

Her eyes follow the faint light travel from one side of her room to the other. Why she doesn't take the sheet off of her face, she doesn't know. But she'll just blame it on defending herself. She knows where Brittany is standing when she hears mumbles about a safe trip and good luck to the rest of her life.

Santana expects for the door to slam, sleeping parents be damned. But Brittany's not her and she hears the soft click of the door closing. Santana falls back on the bed and she lets the sheet fall on her face.

Maybe it can suffocate her instead.

-l-

Santana sees the flashlight on the table by her front door and wonders why Brittany just didn't take it with her. But she doesn't want to think about that anymore. So she just stuffs the flashlight in her purse, and rushes out the door. For the car ride she plays her music obnoxiously loud and drowns herself trying to forget what she's done.

-l-

Santana is having a miserable day. Disastrous events have stacked themselves against her from the time she woke up this morning until now, when she finds herself with a power outage in her building. All she wants is to reheat some leftovers and snuggle into her covers to forget the day even happened.

She picks her flashlight from the kitchen counter and turns it on only to find that the batteries no longer work. She yells in frustration and nearly throws her flashlight away, no longer caring if she breaks anything. She sighs in defeat before feeling her way towards the miscellaneous drawer where the batteries ought to be.

When she unscrews the bottom to replace the dead batteries, she discovers that there aren't any batteries in there at all. A rolled sheet of paper instead falls in her hands. Quickly feeling for the batteries, she replaces them and turns the flashlight on to try and figure out what the paper might say.

She unravels it and tries to read the note. It was dated two years ago, when Brittany left her.

Her heart aches when she reads the words in Brittany's handwriting.

_You can still fix this._

The lights in her apartment flicker back on and Santana doesn't even notice it.

-l-

It's been a week since she found the note. In the greatest moment of strength she can remember scourging up in the last two years of utter cowardice, she picks up the phone.

She has no expectations. She did, after all, break what shouldn't have been broken, least of all by her hands.

_Hello?_

_Is it too late? Is it too late to fix us?_

_Santana?_

_Am I too late?_

There's an unbearable pause and Santana's ready to drop the call, forget it ever happened. She can hear Brittany sigh, while she holds her breath. She almost laughs in gratitude when she hears Brittany's next words.

_No, it's not. But I wish you replaced your batteries sooner._


End file.
